The present disclosure concerns an improved flying object such as a helicopter.
The disclosure concerns a helicopter generally. In particular, but not exclusively, it is related to a toy helicopter and in particular to a re mote-controlled model helicopter or a toy helicopter.
It is known that a helicopter is a complex machine which is unstable and as a result difficult to control, so that much experience is required to safely operate such helicopters without mishaps.
Typically, a helicopter includes a body, a main rotor and a tail rotor or a tandem rotor.
The main rotor provides an upward force to keep the helicopter in the air, as well as a lateral or forward or backward force to steer the helicopter in required directions. This can be by making the angle of incidence of the rotor blades of the main rotor vary cyclically at every revolution of the main rotor.
The main rotor has a natural tendency to deviate from its position, which may lead to uncontrolled movements and to a crash of the helicopter if the pilot loses control over the steering of the helicopter.
Solutions to slow down the effect have already been provided up to now, including the application of stabilizing rods or a stabilizing bar and weights on the rotor blades.
All these solutions make use of the known phenomenon of gyroscopic precession and the centrifugal forces to obtain the desired effect.
The tail rotor is not at all insensitive to this phenomenon, since it has to prevent the body to turn round the drive shaft of the rotor as a result of the resistance torque of the rotor on the body.
To this end, the tail rotor is erected such that it develops a lateral thrust which has to counteract the above-mentioned resistance torque of the rotor and the helicopter is provided with means which have to enable the pilot to control the lateral thrust so• as to determine the flight position round the vertical axis.
Since the tail of the helicopter tends to turn round the drive shaft of the main rotor, even in case of small variations in the drive torque of the main rotor, most helicopters are provided with a separate and autonomous mechanical or electromechanical system such as a gyroscope or the like which automatically compensates the thrust of the tail rotor for the unwanted rotations.
In general, the stability of a helicopter includes the result of the interaction between:
the rotation of the rotor blades; the movements of any possible stabilizing rods; compensation of the resistance torque of the main rotor by means of the tail rotor;
the system such as a gyroscope or the like to compensate for small undesired variations in the resistance torque of the main rotor; and
control of the helicopter which controls the rotational speed of the main rotor and of the tail rotor.
When these elements are essentially in balance, the pilot should be able to steer the helicopter as desired.
This does not mean, however, that the helicopter can fly by itself and can thus maintain a certain flight position or maneuver, for example, hovering or making slow movements without the intervention of a pilot.
Moreover, flying a helicopter usually requires intensive training and much experience of the pilot, for both a full size operational real helicopter as well as a toy helicopter or a remote-controlled model helicopter.
The present disclosure aims to minimize one or several of the above-mentioned and other disadvantages by providing a simple and cheap solution to auto stabilize and control the helicopter in a horizontal plane, such that operating the helicopter becomes simpler and possibly reduces the need for long-standing experience of the pilot.
The helicopter should be able to move up or down by changing rotor rpm, or change heading by altering tail rotor rpm. The known helicopter cannot as effectively be controlled to move foreword or backwards, nor sideways left or right, namely the different dimensions.
In order to control a helicopter in flight, permanent commands are needed in those different dimensions to direct it towards the desired direction. Therefore, a system is needed to influence the lift force and motion of the rotor in a cyclical way.